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- A game for promotion: The Central Bank clarified the criteria for obtaining the status of a qualified investor
A game for promotion: The Central Bank clarified the criteria for obtaining the status of a qualified investor
The Central Bank of Russia has updated the conditions for granting qualified investor status. Now one of the independent grounds will be the level of annual income: it should be at least 12 million rubles for each of the previous two years. Combined recognition criteria are also possible. The new rules will be effective from July 28, 2025. How they will affect the investment sector is described in the Izvestia article.
New Central Bank Rules on Qualified Investor Status
In accordance with the instruction of the Bank of Russia, which comes into force on July 28, 2025, the requirements for the status of a qualified investor will change significantly, Elena Altukhova, associate professor at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, PhD in Economics, told Izvestia.
— First of all, this concerns the amount of income received, which over the past two years should amount to at least 12 million rubles per year. At the same time, the Bank of Russia takes into account the candidate's specialized education: those who have studied Accounting, Analysis and Audit, or Taxes and Taxation, or if they have a degree in finance, can receive the status of a qualified investor," she noted.
At the same time, from January 1, 2026, the asset requirements will double to 24 million rubles.
But when combined with the criterion of specialized education or special training in this field, the financial requirements will be twice as low — 6 and 12 million rubles per year, respectively, the expert recalled.
— On the part of the Bank of Russia, this step is justified primarily by the fact that long—term investments, which the Russian economy certainly needs, are highly risky and require additional skills in portfolio management, - says Elena Altukhova. — Of course, this is a serious blow for those who planned to become a qualified investor in the near future: this is not the first time that the Central Bank has tightened its requirements.
The expert draws attention to the fact that the mega-regulator acts solely in the interests of market players. The key purpose of these changes is considered to be risk insurance. An investor with a special education, an academic degree, or who has received special training, as well as having a sufficient asset base, is better insured. Such requirements will allow him to make more informed decisions, as well as provide the market with long money. All this will contribute to increasing the investment potential of the Russian economy, as well as the emergence of new financial instruments that will give the market additional incentives for growth and development.
— Another significant step for those wishing to obtain the status may be, for example, passing the exam for obtaining a financial analyst certificate. It will allow you not only to better understand the specifics of portfolio formation, but also to have financial consulting skills," the expert noted. All this, in her opinion, will provide an investor with an opportunity to better understand the specifics of the financial market organization, as well as allow the mega—regulator to systematically introduce new tools, and most importantly, the main condition for successful investment will be met - timely and comprehensive risk protection.
Weaning from the market
The decision to adjust the requirements was preceded by a fairly extensive discussion in professional circles, Oleg Skapenker, Associate Professor of the Department of Global Financial Markets and Fintech at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, noted in an interview with Izvestia. However, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation still followed the path of a noticeable increase in the amount of censorship. This is fraught with the exclusion of a certain proportion of investors from the market — those who passed the old requirements, but do not pass the new ones.
— Although the status is formally indefinite, it may be revoked after periodic verification, when changing brokers or management companies. And a group of investors with annual income from 6 million to 12 million rubles is a very significant part of potential purchasers of stock assets. The tendency of the regulator to take into account education and qualifications seems more logical, because willingness to take risks is more determined by understanding its nature, rather than the amount that an investor is willing to lose, Oleg Skapenker believes.
The main problem for developing the activity of investors taking their first steps in the market or just considering such an opportunity may be access to objective information.
— It would seem that in the age of the Internet there is a lot of data, but in fact the materials are divided into only two main groups. The first is high—quality, but prepared by the largest financial intermediaries and largely focused on attracting customers, rather than launching their critical thinking," explains Oleg Skapenker.
The second group consists of much lower quality materials that are not fully relevant or do not take into account the specifics of domestic legislation and practice. Detailed and always relevant materials can be published only with the direct participation of the regulator, the financier is sure.
It should be recalled that the categorization of stock market participants into qualified and unskilled appeared back in 2007. The purpose of this separation was the desire to protect those who are taking the first steps in investing from premature access to complex and potentially unprofitable financial products. By default, any novice investor is considered unqualified. For such participants, only basic exchange-traded instruments hosted on domestic trading platforms are available. They have a reduced level of risk.
The status of a qualified investor serves as a kind of passport to a more professional and free financial market environment, where a significantly expanded arsenal of tools is available that are not included in standard offers. However, having this status also provides for a higher responsibility for decisions, since the investor interacts with products and tools that involve a more complex risk assessment, lack of guaranteed profitability and, in some cases, reduced transparency. Nevertheless, with the appropriate level of knowledge and a strategic approach to money management, this status becomes a powerful tool for increasing the efficiency and flexibility of investment activities.
The Ministry of Finance forwarded Izvestia's request to the Central Bank, but no response had been received from it at the time of publication.
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